Silence in the Southern Hills
The words forget reality as soon
As they begin to form somewhere inside
The brain. They start as thought that changes noon
To mist, or weddings with a kidnapped bride.
The words replace what they would leap to do.
They grasp at sunshine that is spirit on
Its way to immortality, to blue
In candle flames beyond a dawn
In Arctic poets’ nightmares, to a breath
A unicorn in castle tapestry of wool
Exhales at thoughts of freedom, to that death
The flimsy martyr worships always full.
..The mind and words oppose the far away
….Things, bowing breezes that can never stay.
~ Phillip Whidden